


In The End

by calicofold



Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: End of the World, Final Battle, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1997-05-24
Updated: 1997-05-24
Packaged: 2018-01-26 08:30:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1681628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calicofold/pseuds/calicofold
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At the end of all things, the two remaining are perfectly matched.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In The End

He raised his sword in salute. Across the road, his opponent replied in kind, bowing stiffly, dispassionate gaze fixed on Connor's cold eyes. They moved together in the oldest dance they knew. Forward, block, lunge, step back, turn, parry. Movements clean and pure, honed past mere skill to art. A thousand thousand fights across more centuries than mankind could tell.

Mankind. They could tell nothing any more. They were gone into dust. The last humans dying far from their home planet in useless search for an extension of the time appointed for humanity. It had grown back, all the destruction, all the lost greenness finally hiding again the vast prairies of craters and jagged toothed buildings. But not in time for those who could not live forever.

This was to be a hollow victory.

"And what shall you rule?" The first asked calmly of the second.

"Less than nothing," the other agreed. Which spoke which words no longer mattered. Both understood the empty futility of what they did. 

Duncan wove gracefully through the web of blades cast around him. Connor swung the shining blade towards the other's neck, and almost reached an end.

Duncan nicked a gash across the hard-breathing chest, and pushed the advantage as Connor fell back, pulling his arm back for the final sweep.

When they had fought each other to a standstill they stopped. They bowed, each to the other, and separated, walking away from each other through the grey-green dust of a fallen world. Trying not to remember.

"I made some mead," Duncan called to the sweaty back.

An interested glint appeared in Connor's eye as he turned back. "Real mead?"

"Sort of," his cousin hedged. "Same clan."

"Different vintage," they finished together wryly. They always had finished together. And now, with mankind gone into the land, and the rise of a new kind of civilisation, the two Immortals desperately sought to finish the last duty left to them. But there was perfect balance between them. Sword to sword, honour to honour, kin to kin. So each year they fought, and bowed, and parted. And met again. 

There was no Prize to win that was worth anything any more. No tyrant's power. Just the loneliness of a kinslayer. A mortal's slow death in an empty world.

In the end, there could be only pain. And they walked away together.


End file.
